Obesity contributes to many known diseases, and sometimes hearing that can become like white noise and people stop hearing it (similar to how smokers stop hearing how dangerous smoking is). But with the pandemic it has been well documented that obesity is the most dangerous of the co-morbidities. Numerous research reports document that obesity increases the risk of Covid-19 infections, sickness, hospitalization, intubated ventilations and death. Research shows that visceral fat (deep fat collections allowed the liver, lungs and heart, as opposed to superficial surface fat) can serve as a reservoir for the Covid-19 virus. The more overweight you are the more visceral fat your body has stored. The virus appears to get into the fat tissue surrounding the lungs, through direct binding with specific hypertension ACE 2 receptor sites, which then causes severe lung inflammation and damage.
Obesity is also associated with a state of chronic low-grade inflammation that impairer’s the body’s immune response which contributes to increased organ damage, disease and death. The three major risk factors for contracting the Covid-19 virus, and developing more serious complications from the infection, are hypertension, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Obesity, with the increased amounts of visceral fat, is a major factor for causing, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, kidney failure and heart disease. Among the most important interventions that can reduce Covid-19 spread and infection, such as, wearing a mask, social distancing and getting vaccinated, losing excess fat, should be one important action that overweight individuals should aggressively undertake.
Losing small amounts of weight, even 5%-10% of your present weight are enough to produce significant biological changes that can result in a reduction in blood pressure, a decrease in blood.sugar and less joint discomfort and pain. Small steady changes in your eating behavior can produce significantly less discomfit and distress. Think about if the Titanic had turned 5 or 10 degrees from its course a bit earlier, such a small change would have resulted in a huge savings.